Friday, June 19, 2020

Can I Lay Track Now?

As I mentioned last week, I got the third module built and hung on the wall late Sunday afternoon. As can be seen below, the third module is just hanging on the French cleat. When the photo was taken I had not leveled it or attached it to the other modules.
3_Modules.jpg

Now I have the third module properly leveled and attached to the other modules.
final-Install.jpg

So why haven’t I started laying track? I have learned, at least I think I have after thirty plus years of being an arm chair modeler, get the prep work done first. So, that is what I am doing. I have the lighting in place, I am prepping the backdrop next will come painting the backdrop. Once the backdrop has been painted I can then add a one inch layer of foam insulation and paint the foam with a earth color THEN I can start laying track.

Room lights off and lighting set to daylight.
lighting.jpg

Now I am going to tease something here that I will detail in a later post but it is a big reason for the style of benchwork. Here is a four-minute video “24 hours in 4 minutes”.

So, I slacked off on model railroading and played with programming a bit more this week. The video is a proof of concept Lighting test that is supposed to replicate the lighting in Vancouver, BC on June 16, 2020 from 00:00 to 23:59. This functionality will work with my Fast Clock (to be discussed in a future post) coordinating lighting with time.

In theory this could be any place in the world, all you need to know is the nautical twilight begin, nautical twilight end, sunrise, sunset and solar noon times. These times are available from timeanddate.com. While this is a manual process right now WHEN I get to the point of actually operating I hope to have this somewhat automated.

As the video shows there is a flutter that will have to be resolved but for now, I know the concept will work and I can get on with railroading.

Until next week.

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